Hope for the Weary

I can sense it the moment we pull away from the city limits. Life here is hard. Among the beauty, the rolling hills, and the gorgeous canyon, people toil and wrestle with the land. I sit back and realize I am seeing all this through my very Western eyes and I want to know more. I want to see and know the lady who labours hard under the weight of a heavy burden. I want to know and understand the children who run alongside the road. I want to know the young boy who herds his cattle, and where does he find his joy. It almost seems I have somehow gone back in time. The scenes idyllic, peaceful, and yet what do I know. As we cross the Ethiopian landscape, there is much I don't understand, much I want to know.

When we arrive at our site, they are there. There are children whose names I can't pronounce. There are elders who want to know who I am. There are boys herding cattle and leading donkeys, and somehow for some brief moment in time, I enter the fray. I am an outsider standing within. The children are curious. Some of them know some little English and they are eager to practice. They ask my name and they practice it. They ask who is my mother and their lips struggle as they practice "Looow-raaaaain."  "Your Mother is Loooow-raaain."  And they smile. One boy who knows more English than the rest tells his friend what to tell me, and his friend comes up to me and says "you are stinky" as his mischievous friend peels over in laughter, the poor boy who told me somehow unaware of what he just said. Boys will be boys, and somehow in this foreign land so far from the place I call home, that makes me smile. The young girls who want to pose for pictures their smiles full of joy, it fills me in the best of ways.

A young girl with a baby comes up to watch. At first I think the baby is her sibling, but then she tells us through a translator that it is her son. That she was married at 10 years old and bore her first child at 16. And I struggle with what to do with that. With how to understand ways that are foreign and seem wrong to my Western eyes. All I can do is ask that she finds the joy of the Lord. In all that is heavy, and hard to understand I may never fully know or grasp. But I can love the people in front of me in that very moment. I did not come to "fix" but to love and to somehow be part of some kind of design that will hopefully make life in this community a better place. And soon after that I see it. A young boy walks up to me and asks me to take his picture. I can see it clear and shining in his eyes, Hope is there. It is here in the middle of this village full of things I don't understand. It is in the eyes of this boy who stands before me, quiet and tentative hope in his eyes and his smile. It is there in the boy full of mischief who puts his arm around his friend, and later skips on home with joyful strides as he pulls a flattened yellow jug on a string. He skips joy, he speaks mischief, he radiates life.

The director of the ministry I am there with, gives some of the boys who helped us dig holes for soil tests a small bit of money to buy some treats. They divide it equally and go buy one bun each. They follow us to our car, skipping, smiling, so very happy with their one lone bun. And I am reminded to find gratitude. To fight and claw my way back to giving thanks in the midst of all that is hard, in the midst of the challenge of living in this foreign land, I can give thanks.

And then we go and we visit the elders. The forgotten ones, that have loved and laboured hard. And what's a girl to do when a granny that doesn't speak her language wants to hug and kiss her on the cheek? Nothing but smile and hug her back. To hold tight to the joy in the moment and to know these, all of these, are the ones that matter.

And as we drive home, we file past scores of trucks with UN army tankers. I am told they are coming back from Darfur, a region with bloody violence. And I wonder yet again where finds this joy? And suddenly, I am reminded, it is in the eyes of the children, the eyes of the granny, it is all around me if I will take the time to look. To be reminded that in my own small story I have this blessed and amazing opportunity to be part of something so much bigger than myself. Soli Deo gloria.

Among the Inspired

I sat back and wondered today why I haven't been writing more. Because some way somehow writing seems to set free the deepest thoughts in my heart. But then it also uses my realest emotions, and sometimes writing just leaves me feeling spent. And at a time in my life when just making it through the day seems to sometimes take every ounce of strength that I have. It seems my days are filled with driving through some kind of ordered chaos, trying to figure out how to cook with unfamiliar food, or trying to convince my husband that having a cat is a basic human right, and it seems there is not always reserve for digging into the deepest parts of myself.

Life is settling into some kind of routine here and I like that. Because somehow knowing what the day might look like calms me down in the midst of so much unfamiliar. But then again life is always full of surprises. I can tell you honestly that I love it here. And that doesn't come as a surprise to me. I loved it here long before I ever knew I would one day call this home. I loved the culture, and the people, and Uganda was somehow part of me even before I knew this would be my story. And even still, there are some days that are incredibly hard. There are moments I miss the crispness of winter air, and the crunch of snow beneath my feet in a silent forest full of towering white birch. I miss the wide open prairie skies, the vibrance of canola fields in July, the sound of resisting water as I paddle a canoe, the juicy goodness of a fresh strawberry. There are some days when I feel like I am a failure at this business of living in another culture. Sometimes when I misunderstand or am misunderstood and I want to know what it is I need to do or who I need to be in order to befriend and be loved.

And yet even in and through all this sometimes messy transition and fumbling finding my way, I am reminded about the ways my Ugandan friends have inspired me in the first place. I remember returning to Canada inspired by their joy and their resilience. And I am inspired to find that same resilience in me. The ways these people and this country first inspired me are the very things I need to find in myself. And I will, I know I will. Perhaps not all at once, and perhaps not without making another mistake or two, but I write this as a blessed woman, surrounded by people full of patience and grace. Willing to love me as I am. Sometimes I just need to remind myself of that. In some kind of way perhaps being in a cross cultural marriage does add some unique challenges, but somehow the Good Lord knew, that as I lived in this corner of the earth that the very Ugandan that I married would be exactly what I needed. Some kind of buffer between my Canadian self and the culture I am trying to understand. Someone who would so patiently love me and remind me that I don't need to morph myself into someone I'm not in some kind of feeble attempt to be accepted. Someone to remind me that I can live in Uganda in all my Canadianess, love the people and the culture and be loved in return. And somehow in the middle of it all, the soil on these red dirt roads is causing some kind of lasting change deep within who I am.

Among the inspired. A family of children I met in rural Uganda. Newly abandoned by their father, dearly loved by their mother, they were very excited about the prospect of attending school at the new facility our team was designing.

Endurance to Run the Race

It seems that every time I run in a race I gain some kind of perspective. Somehow right in the middle of it, it always ends up being harder than I thought it would be. Particularly if you are running in African heat and humidity, high elevation, and dust. Somehow this prairie girl who comes from the flatlands of Manitoba and would rather run in -30 C than +30 C is learning to adapt, albeit slowly. My heaving lungs gasp for air as I make my way up yet another steep hill, and yet when I make it to the top, tired and red faced, somehow I know it will all be ok.

So today, the runners came out of the starting gate like some kind of bullets. I felt a little silly being at the back of the pack. But I paced myself and ran at a speed I knew I could maintain. About halfway through I started passing people who had slowed to a walk because they had failed to pace themselves. You see there is something about endurance. About knowing when going a bit slower is a little bit ok. And knowing that victory is not always found only in crossing the finish line first. As I neared the last quarter of the race I came up behind a young girl who I could see was tiring. She looked at me with some kind of desperation in her face and said "Can we run together?" And so we did. Ran side by side for that last kilometre, willing each other to just keep on running. At the end of the race I asked her name, and she told me it was Mercy. And I was reminded in that moment, that even though I now live oceans away from the place I once called home, I am kind of doing the very same thing. Getting up every day, going to work, trying to be part of some kind of community around me and loving the people in my path as I do so. I may be on the mission field in a more formalized sense, but in some ways it's not really any different. And in some ways it's not at all the same. There is more material poverty on the streets in which I walk, but here, just as at home, I have the privilege of learning how to love just a little bit better. I hope that I can take each opportunity with an outstretched hand and learn from each experience. Because so far everyone I have met has something to teach me if I'm willing to listen.

The Privilege of the In Between

Somehow I feel as though I have been handed some kind of great and miraculous privilege.  That is, the privilege of living in between. In between cultures and in between worlds. And my deepest and greatest fear is that I will do a bad job of it. That I will somehow close myself off from the beautiful culture around me in the difficulty of transition and as the race becomes a marathon and my heart and my mind grow weary. My greatest fear is that I will somehow not be enough. That someday in the far off future I will land back in Canada callous and unchanged rather than someone who has had their heart shifted and poured out.

I have been reading through the pages of a book on brokenness and I am coming to realize that perhaps in all my weakness and not enoughness, I simply need to offer myself. To strip away pretense, to be willing to do hard things, and to offer myself as imperfect as I am. To have the courage to walk this road even if it means I might get hurt. The words I read are this: "Because when we who are broken give to the broken- this is giving ourselves to Him, the Wounded Healer, the Broken and Given Lover. And He gives us His open and given heart, gives us His very life, gives us union . . . communion" (The Broken Way, 50). I'm reminded that the greatest way that I can be a servant of all is to offer myself, and in an unfamiliar land that is no easy task. Perhaps as I learn to live life in a place very different from my home, I can start small. I can love those around me in small but significant ways. "Love must give to the beautiful people in the backstreets of wherever our feet land, beautiful people living near us and sitting across from us and streaming by us, and no matter what anyone's saying, everyone's just asking if they can be loved. Love gives and every smile says, Yes, you are loved. Love gives, and huge acts to try to make someone happy don't make anyone as hugely happy as simply doing small acts to make someone feel loved. It's strange how that is: everybody wants to change the world, but nobody wants to do the small thing that makes just one person feel loved" (The Broken Way, 74).

One of the greatest blessings of being here long term has been the deepening of friendships I have made on my previous visits here. Somehow these relationships can travel into territory previously not possible when my return ticket was always looming. I have made friends with beautiful people from whom I have learned so much, people from another culture who have let me into their broken places. Places so fraught with pain and hurt that I'm not even quite sure what to do with it. And yet somehow some of these people look back and say that "God is good because He has brought me through some deep valleys, He is my Ebeneezer." I remember back to my culture training and the placement of Ebeneezer stones. A stone of remembrance to mark something God has done. And I see how the great Redeemer has breathed new life into this dear friend of mine.

And so as I begin the journey of meeting new friends and figuring out what it means to love across cultures, maybe God can use this heart of mine to love a few people just a little bit, or a lot more than a little bit. Maybe I'll come home with pieces that are more broken then they are now, and yet I somehow think that the Reflection of God will be seen in all that breaks. "The greatest truths always are the greatest paradox. And what could be a greater paradox than this? Out of feeling lavishly loved by God, one can break and give away that lavish love- and know the complete fullness of love. The miracle happens in the breaking." (The Broken Way, 32).

Child of a King

Eyes as wide as saucers, that is what I noticed about this sweet boy the first time I met him. The language barrier was somehow bridged by his gentle spirit and his wide-eyed smile. This sweet young boy had been abandoned by his mother recently when she and her new husband moved to a new town and left him behind. A neighbour brought him to the gates of Eagles Wings Children’s Village and that is where I met him.

There are many things I don’t understand about this foreign land that has become my home. As I struggle to make sense of this new life around me, I am reminded that in every corner of the earth we all live with deep and broken places among us. 

I once heard a man who works with victims of sex trafficking in Cambodia say that even the very best trauma recovery and rehabilitation programs can at best cobble together a life that is functional. But only the redeeming love of Jesus can take a life full of brokenness and make it whole. Only He can restore Joy and Love in a life that has been broken and battered.  Because His wounds heal ours, His love erases shame, and reminds us we are children of a King. We hold incredible worth.

And so as I look at this precious boy, I see in him hope and a chance at new life. His excitement at learning to read, his streaming tears of joy at spending his very first Christmas morning with present under the tree, they remind me not to overlook the simple pleasures I so often take for granted. Perhaps as he grows and begins to understand his story a bit more he may have to cling onto that redeeming love, to cling hard and to believe that he has been chosen as the son of a King. To be made whole and to take hold of this new life he’s been given and to remember his identity and sense of self is made new at the foot of the cross.

One thing that excites me so much is seeing  the older children becoming leaders and building into the lives of others.

Learning to Read and Write

The reality of not enough

"Jjaja, these children, they are saying their mother left them four days ago and they do not know when she will be back. They have not eaten since then."

The oldest of these children was perhaps 11, the youngest just learning to walk. All I could think of was that I thought I was used to this by now, seeing the reality of people who have not enough. Clearly I am not, and maybe that is not such a bad thing. And I started to wonder what kind of mother could leave her 5 small children all by themselves for the better part of a week. But just as the thought entered my mind, I quickly realized that I don't know what it means to go hungry. Not even a little bit. And my feet are just leaving the starting blocks of starting a long term journey in a foreign culture I don't fully understand. I have been reminded more than a few times these past few weeks that this process is going to take more patience, understanding, and grace, than I alone posses. It is going to be difficult, but I am frequently reminded that the things in life that are worth fighting for are rarely easy. I stand here and I want to become a student of paradox, learning to embrace both the joy and the challenge.

I have been reminded in some small ways these past few days of how this foreign land is becoming home. I walk along the red dirt path and I hear a course of excited voices calling out "Auntie, how are you?"  We assemble in one room and they announce I am here to stay, at least for a few years, and the room erupts in applause, cheering, and screaming.

A young man comes up to me and says "Auntie, now we will see you lots. I am very happy because I know that you love us."

I don't know what kind of challenge the coming months or years may hold. Perhaps that is a good thing. But I know as I walk this journey, I am loved. And for now, that is enough.

Life in the Village is not easy for many of the children

Have you ever seen anyone so excited to get a bag of flour for Christmas?

A piece of candy is a precious gift

These boys were super excited about their toothbrushes

Monthly Newsletter

In addition to updating my blog from Uganda, I'll be sending out a monthly newsletters which will contain updates about the work I'm doing with Engineering Ministries International as well as personal updates.  The blog will probably be reserved for my theological ponderings and stories that are too long to include in the newsletter.

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